Imaging Unstained Synthetic Polymer Crystals and Defects on Atomic Length Scales Using Cryogenic Electron Microscopy
Abstract
Properties of soft crystalline materials such as synthetic polymers are governed by locations of constituent atoms. Determining atomic-scale structures in these materials is difficult because they degrade rapidly when studied by electron microscopy, and techniques such as x-ray scattering average over volumes much larger than coherent blocks of the unit cells. We obtained cryo-electron microscopy images of self-assembled nanosheets of a peptoid polymer, made by solid-phase synthesis, in which we see a variety of crystalline motifs. A combination of crystallographic and single particle methods, developed for cryo-electron microscopy of biological macromolecules, was used to obtain high resolution images of the crystals. Individual crystals contain grains that are mirror images of each other with concomitant grain boundaries. We have used molecular dynamic simulations to build an atomic model of the crystal structure to facilitate the interpretation of electron micrographs. Direct visualization of crystalline grains and grain boundaries on atomic length scales represents a new level of information for the polymer field.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[4];
[2];
[6]
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division; Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). College of Chemistry
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Foundry; Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States). Dept. of Chemistry
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Foundry
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Foundry; Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1507257
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1512502
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Macromolecules
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 51; Journal Issue: 19; Journal ID: ISSN 0024-9297
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Citation Formats
Jiang, Xi, Greer, Douglas R., Kundu, Joyjit, Ophus, Colin, Minor, Andrew M., Prendergast, David, Zuckermann, Ronald N., Balsara, Nitash P., and Downing, Kenneth H. Imaging Unstained Synthetic Polymer Crystals and Defects on Atomic Length Scales Using Cryogenic Electron Microscopy. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01508.
Jiang, Xi, Greer, Douglas R., Kundu, Joyjit, Ophus, Colin, Minor, Andrew M., Prendergast, David, Zuckermann, Ronald N., Balsara, Nitash P., & Downing, Kenneth H. Imaging Unstained Synthetic Polymer Crystals and Defects on Atomic Length Scales Using Cryogenic Electron Microscopy. United States. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01508.
Jiang, Xi, Greer, Douglas R., Kundu, Joyjit, Ophus, Colin, Minor, Andrew M., Prendergast, David, Zuckermann, Ronald N., Balsara, Nitash P., and Downing, Kenneth H. Tue .
"Imaging Unstained Synthetic Polymer Crystals and Defects on Atomic Length Scales Using Cryogenic Electron Microscopy". United States. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01508. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1507257.
@article{osti_1507257,
title = {Imaging Unstained Synthetic Polymer Crystals and Defects on Atomic Length Scales Using Cryogenic Electron Microscopy},
author = {Jiang, Xi and Greer, Douglas R. and Kundu, Joyjit and Ophus, Colin and Minor, Andrew M. and Prendergast, David and Zuckermann, Ronald N. and Balsara, Nitash P. and Downing, Kenneth H.},
abstractNote = {Properties of soft crystalline materials such as synthetic polymers are governed by locations of constituent atoms. Determining atomic-scale structures in these materials is difficult because they degrade rapidly when studied by electron microscopy, and techniques such as x-ray scattering average over volumes much larger than coherent blocks of the unit cells. We obtained cryo-electron microscopy images of self-assembled nanosheets of a peptoid polymer, made by solid-phase synthesis, in which we see a variety of crystalline motifs. A combination of crystallographic and single particle methods, developed for cryo-electron microscopy of biological macromolecules, was used to obtain high resolution images of the crystals. Individual crystals contain grains that are mirror images of each other with concomitant grain boundaries. We have used molecular dynamic simulations to build an atomic model of the crystal structure to facilitate the interpretation of electron micrographs. Direct visualization of crystalline grains and grain boundaries on atomic length scales represents a new level of information for the polymer field.},
doi = {10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01508},
journal = {Macromolecules},
number = 19,
volume = 51,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {9}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 3 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.